Fireworks in SCOTUS End-of-Term Decisions

The Phyllis Schlafly Report
By John and Andy Schlafly

The U.S. Supreme Court adjourns at the end of June each year for its summer break. To do so the Justices push out every pending decision and then merrily head out of town.

Well, almost every decision. This year the Court quietly punted a contentious redistricting dispute from Louisiana to next fall, despite having already held oral argument on it. The Court also punted on the issue of boys playing in girls’ sports, despite pending appeals from Arizona, Idaho and West Virginia.

Several cases on the Court’s so-called “shadow docket” also remain undecided. Justice Alito criticizes that pejorative term for applications brought to the Court on an emergency basis in which no oral argument is held and decisions are rendered without explanation.

Many important cases resolved by the Supreme Court are from its shadow docket, such as the recent ruling allowing Trump to deport illegal aliens to South Sudan. Trump asserts the right to deport illegals to a third country when their home country refuses to take them back, and the Supreme Court held in favor of Trump on this.

But after the High Court issued its decision on June 23, the district court continued to interfere with these deportations. Trump’s marvelous Solicitor General John Sauer is back with an extraordinary request of the Supreme Court to, in essence, discipline the district court for its defiance.

With all the talk of potential defiance by Trump against the federal judiciary, district courts are the ones declining to comply with many recent rulings by the Supreme Court in favor of Trump. On Friday, Justice Amy Coney Barrett penned a decision in favor of Trump that shuts down nationwide injunctions being issued by district courts against him.

“During the first 100 days of the second Trump administration, district courts issued approximately 25 universal injunctions,” Justice Barrett observed on behalf of the 6-3 Court majority in Trump v. CASA. Yet “the universal injunction was conspicuously nonexistent for most of our Nation’s history,” she added.

In ruling for Trump, Justice Barrett pointed out that the dissent by the Biden-appointed Justice Jackson “is at odds with more than two centuries’ worth of precedent, not to mention the Constitution itself. We observe only this: Justice Jackson decries an imperial Executive while embracing an imperial Judiciary.”

Viewed in light of other zingers rendered recently by Justice Barrett, including her rejection of special constitutional rights for transgender persons, she may emerge as the future leader MAGA hoped for. Neither Justice Thomas nor Alito can do it all by themselves.

The ink was barely dry on this victory for Trump when Leftists began scheming how to circumvent it in the lower district courts. Their plan is to seek an unprecedented class certification of illegal aliens born in our country in order to demand birthright citizenship for them.

On Monday, Biden-appointed U.S. District Judge Deborah Boardman in Maryland interrogated Trump’s Department of Justice attorney Brad Rosenberg as to whether Trump plans to deport babies born in our country. When Rosenberg properly responded that this question was purely hypothetical and thus premature, the judge gave him only 24 hours to file a written response with the court.

Rosenberg filed a two-page response on Tuesday that mostly quoted the recent Supreme Court decision, and did not add any commitments by the Trump Administration. His response did not discuss babies, who should be deported with their parents in order to keep families together as Trump has been doing.

District judges in liberal regions of our country have lashed out against Trump’s birthright citizenship executive order. Federal district judge John Coughenour in Seattle declared earlier this year that “this is a blatantly unconstitutional order,” with which the Supreme Court did not agree, while Judge Boardman has incorrectly stated that “the Supreme Court has resoundingly rejected” Trump’s view of birthright citizenship.

News reports and liberal pundits commonly repeat the falsehood that birthright citizenship is guaranteed to everyone including temporary visitors by the Civil War-era 14th Amendment. That is disproven by the fact that American Indians did not have birthright citizenship until it was established by a federal statute in 1924, more than half a century after the 14th Amendment was enacted.

Most countries, in fact, reject birthright citizenship. Israel, for example, grants citizenship to a baby born in Israel only if one of the parents is already an Israeli citizen.

The United Kingdom, long admired as setting the gold standard for a civilized society with its British Empire, likewise rejects birthright citizenship. A baby born in the United Kingdom has a right to citizenship only if a parent was already a British citizen or has permanent residency there.

Another Trump-appointed justice, Brett Kavanaugh, sparkled with his end-of-term decision in Diamond Alternative Energy v. EPA to allow fuel producers to challenge liberal California regulations banning the sale of gasoline-powered automobiles.

John and Andy Schlafly are sons of Phyllis Schlafly (1924-2016) and lead the continuing Phyllis Schlafly Eagles organizations with writing and policy work.

These columns are also posted on PhyllisSchlafly.com, pseagles.com, and Townhall.com.

Skrmetti and More Transgender Cases

The Phyllis Schlafly Report
By John and Andy Schlafly

The 6-3 affirmance by the U.S. Supreme Court in U.S. v. Skrmetti on June 18 was a decisive defeat for the transgender movement. The Court fully upheld a good Tennessee law banning transgender operations and treatments in children, and this conservative decision went further than it had to by declaring the law constitutional.

The pro-transgender side brought this appeal, apparently hoping for a Supreme Court ruling that would invalidate the Tennessee law and similar laws in at least 24 other states. Instead, the Court opens the door to additional states banning these surgeries and drug treatments.

Strident dissents by liberal justices on the Supreme Court are becoming a familiar pattern as 6-3 conservative decisions become the norm. On Monday, the same 3 liberal justices dissented with extreme dismay at a brief order by the Court majority that allows Trump to deport criminal migrants to other countries when their own country of origin won’t take them back.

The last election resolved the transgender and immigration issues as Trump campaigned on them at every rally. The Democrat Party ran and lost as the party that is pro-transgender and pro-illegal immigration, and no one should be genuinely surprised that the majority on the Supreme Court is rejecting the Democrats’ positions now.

Some liberals have been hopeful of bringing Justice Amy Coney Barrett to their side, after she ruled against Trump a couple of times. But her concurring opinion in Skrmetti last week was a complete rejection of the notion that there is any constitutional right that protects being transgender or transitioning to the opposite sex.

As a result of the Civil War and the 14th Amendment, racial discrimination gets special scrutiny from the courts. Justice Barrett flatly rejected giving that sort of scrutiny to laws touching on transgender issues, and Justices Thomas and Alito agreed with her.

On Friday, the Eleventh Circuit, while considering the issue of court-ordered taxpayer funding of transgender treatments for a county employee in Lange v. Houston County, immediately requested supplemental briefing on the impact of the Skrmetti decision on this case from Georgia. An initial panel of that court had ordered the county, and thus the taxpayers, to fund these medical procedures, but that ruling is being reconsidered by the full court on which Republicans have a 7-5 majority.

Skrmetti is not even the only transgender case being decided by the Supreme Court this month. The case of Mahmoud v. Taylor has proven to be as contentious for the High Court to decide.

In Mahmoud, a group of Muslim and Christian parents object to the indoctrination of their children in public school about transgender and sexuality issues without the parents’ consent, and without the parents even receiving advance notice. This is where the transgender issue is resolved long-term: whether schools can brainwash kids about it, rewarding pro-transgender answers with an “A” while penalizing students who disagree.

There should be an even larger majority of Justices on the side of parents who object on religious grounds to LGBTQ+ indoctrination in this upcoming Mahmoud decision as there was on the side of Tennessee in Skrmetti. During an exhausting oral argument that lasted nearly two-and-a-half hours in April, none of the Justices could point to any harm in letting parents opt out of this indoctrination.

But parents need advance notice before they can opt out, and public schools are not doing that. One of the objectionable books being taught was about a puppy who got lost during a Pride Parade, which is a clever way to make students comfortable with these parades that promote transgender lifestyles.

Ordinarily very few parents exercise the existing rights that they have today in many states to pull their children out of objectionable instruction relating to sex or health. The opt-out process can be cumbersome and parents who object the most have already taken their kids out of public schools.

Requiring public schools to give the community notice of these objectionable materials would be helpful, as then taxpayers could see what their high property taxes are being spent on. Lower reading and math scores in schools should be of concern to taxpayers, and so should high amounts of objectionable indoctrination.

Biden-appointed Ninth Circuit Judge Jennifer Sung wrote a decision for that left-leaning court in favor of Oregon schoolteachers who had been fired for objecting to the transgender ideology being imposed in schools there. The district court had dismissed the lawsuit by these schoolteachers, but the Ninth Circuit held in their favor and reinstated the case, captioned Damiano and Medart v. Grants Pass School District No. 7.

The school board later reinstated the teachers to different positions that were inferior to the ones they had before they spoke out. The courageous teachers had used their own electronic devices, on their own time, to promote the “I Resolve” campaign with resolutions for ending restroom access by the opposite anatomical sex and stopping the practice of schools using a gender-different name for a child without parental consent.

John and Andy Schlafly are sons of Phyllis Schlafly (1924-2016) and lead the continuing Phyllis Schlafly Eagles organizations with writing and policy work.

These columns are also posted on PhyllisSchlafly.com, pseagles.com, and Townhall.com.

Illegal Alien Crisis Compels ICE Raids

The Phyllis Schlafly Report
By John and Andy Schlafly

A meatpacking plant in Omaha, Nebraska, was employing nearly 80 illegal aliens, as uncovered by a much-publicized raid on June 10 by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Americans have since flooded the company with applications for these jobs, according to Breitbart.

Included among these illegal aliens is a man who had a final order of removal issued against him in 2019, yet he remained in our country. Another had been previously deported four times, and a third had three DUI arrests plus an illegal reentry conviction.

Omitted from most stories is that an illegal alien from Honduras carrying a weapon assaulted officers and agents while they were doing their job to enforce the law and protect Americans. Additional crimes by these illegal aliens include fraud and misuse of visas and permits, resisting arrest, illegal reentry, and misuse of Social Security numbers.

Raids have become necessary because state and local authorities, particularly in California but also in other states, are refusing to allow ICE access to arrested criminals for deportation purposes. Earlier this year the California legislature rejected a bill introduced by a Republican to overturn the California sanctuary law, signed by liberal Gov. Jerry Brown (D-CA), which prevents such cooperation.

ICE released a statement about its June 10th raid in Omaha that it “executed a federal search warrant at Glenn Valley Foods based on an ongoing criminal investigation into the large-scale employment of aliens without authorization to work in the United States.” Their only punishment will be deportation back to their home countries, and three of them have already agreed to return to Mexico voluntarily.

Omaha is located in a conservative Midwestern state but is represented by the anti-Trump Republican Rep. Don Bacon. Omaha’s public school board invites illegal aliens by announcing that it will not inquire or share the illegal status of students who are enrolled in its schools.

The Omaha Public School Board issued this statement in response to the raid: “Omaha Public Schools serves students and families regardless of immigration status. We do not ask about or share a student or family’s immigration status.”

Most illegal aliens do not speak English at home, and thus their children are not learning the official language of the United States or assimilating into our culture. Our public schools should not be allocating scarce educational resources towards non-English-speakers, while American children are not acquiring basic reading and math skills.

President Trump confirmed his deportation program on Sunday night on Truth Social. He observed that “the Brave Men and Women of ICE are subjected to violence, harassment, and even threats from Radical Democrat Politicians,” but Trump vowed that “nothing will stop us from executing our mission, and fulfilling our Mandate to the American People.”

Trump resolved a pitched battle among his advisers as to whether these raids would continue at farms, food processing facilities, and the hospitality industry of hotels and restaurants. Trump’s Agriculture Secretary had briefly persuaded Trump to exempt these employers of illegal aliens, but Stephen Miller and a backlash by MAGA led to the reversal of these exemptions.

Jobs in the hospitality industry will soon become more attractive with the promised elimination of the taxation of tips, about which Trump campaigned and Senate Democrats have already approved. These benefits should flow to hardworking American workers rather than to illegal aliens.

The meatpacking industry, which was the focus of the raid in Omaha, pays more than the minimum wage in most places. But employers can pay illegal aliens less than Americans, which is why some businessmen look the other way as illegal aliens fill jobs in their companies.

Trump vows to “expand efforts to detain and deport Illegal Aliens in America’s largest Cities, such as Los Angeles, Chicago, and New York, where Millions upon Millions of Illegal Aliens reside. These, and other such Cities, are the core of the Democrat Power Center, where they use Illegal Aliens to expand their Voter Base, cheat in Elections, and grow the Welfare State, robbing good paying Jobs and Benefits from Hardworking American Citizens.”

Trump linked this to the transgender travesty by criticizing those who “believe in Open Borders, Transgender for Everybody, and Men playing in Women’s Sports — And that is why I want ICE, Border Patrol, and our Great and Patriotic Law Enforcement Officers, to FOCUS on our crime ridden and deadly Inner Cities, and those places where Sanctuary Cities play such a big role.”

In words that describe Omaha and similar towns, Trump said he has “directed my entire Administration to put every resource possible behind this effort, and reverse the tide of Mass Destruction Migration that has turned once Idyllic Towns into scenes of Third World Dystopia.” Rather than calling this deportation, Trump correctly calls this a “REMIGRATION of Aliens to the places from where they came.”

John and Andy Schlafly are sons of Phyllis Schlafly (1924-2016) and lead the continuing Phyllis Schlafly Eagles organizations with writing and policy work.

These columns are also posted on PhyllisSchlafly.com, pseagles.com, and Townhall.com.

RFK Jr. Cleans House as MAGA Hoped

The Phyllis Schlafly Report
By John and Andy Schlafly

Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. (RFK Jr.), Trump’s Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS), cleared the deck on Monday of Big Pharma’s control over vaccine policy. RFK Jr. fired everyone on the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP), which has never recommended against any vaccine, including those later withdrawn as unsafe.

“A clean sweep is needed to re-establish public confidence in vaccine science,” RFK Jr. wrote in the Wall St. Journal, which itself has been a mouthpiece for the pharmaceutical industry. OpenSecrets.org identifies Big Pharma as the most influential group in Washington, D.C., and more than two-thirds of the U.S. Senate receives Big Pharma donations.

Many Americans have no idea what ACIP is, or understand that ACIP’s vaccine recommendations automatically become vaccine requirements for children to attend public schools. Private schools also require the same laundry list of ACIP-recommended vaccines, and Illinois this year considered legislation to require homeschool children to receive all these vaccines too.

Big Pharma’s lobbyists have cleverly obtained legal requirements in every state that automatically impose on children whatever ACIP approves. So although it appears that ACIP is merely making recommendations, in fact its recommendations become requirements for children unable to refuse the injections.

It used to be that nearly every state had a religious exemption to vaccination, and large states like California even had a philosophical exemption that did not require any religion. But Big Pharma has diligently worked to remove exemptions, such that California has neither a religious nor a philosophical exemption, while several other blue states including New York have eliminated their religious exemption.

Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) is an important part or partner of the MAGA movement that helped elect Trump along with a strong 53-47 GOP majority in the Senate. Among many stunning achievements by Trump’s Cabinet and special advisers, RFK Jr.’s overhaul of ACIP is one of the biggest and boldest reforms.

Personal observations of children after vaccination have led many to suspect that they are being harmed by injections they do not need. An alarming increase in autism, allergies, heart problems, and cancer cries out for an explanation, and one difference between younger and older Americans is that younger generations have had far more vaccines.

Covid was relatively safe in children and yet the Covid vaccine was pushed on them by ACIP, and has been required by many colleges as a condition of enrollment. In some cases children were injected with the Covid vaccine without their parents’ approval.

Hospitals give most infants the Hepatitis B vaccine soon after birth, although its purpose is to protect against a sexually transmitted disease. New Jersey, where the pharmaceutical industry has many offices, requires 3 doses of this and many other vaccines in children as a condition of merely entering kindergarten.

The liberal media understood immediately the significance of RFK Jr.’s housecleaning move, and some websites featured headlines about this with greater priority than news about the Los Angeles riots. When Tucker Carlson and James O’Keefe previously took on Big Pharma, they were soon forced out of their jobs.

The blowback against RFK Jr. will be intense, and it appears that Big Pharma already controls Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC) who was initially planning to vote against RFK Jr.’s confirmation. Only a grassroots outpouring by MAHA in support of RFK Jr. caused Tillis to eventually vote in favor of him.

CNN quoted one of the fired members of ACIP as blustering that “I’ve never seen anything this damaging to public health happen in my lifetime.” The adviser asserted, “This will fundamentally destabilize vaccination in America.”

Instead, it might end vaccine tyranny in the United States, where children are forced to receive more vaccines than anywhere else in the world. American children typically receive 30 doses of vaccines by the age of one, due to how ACIP has relentlessly recommended virtually every vaccine.

Every member of ACIP whom RFK Jr. fired had been appointed by Biden, who famously abused his power by ordering all large employers to require Covid vaccination of their employees. The U.S. Supreme Court intervened on an emergency basis to block Biden’s vaccine mandate as unjustified by any law.

There has been a chorus of complaints about RFK Jr.’s mass firing from those who feed at the trough of Big Pharma. As an advisory committee, ACIP should be a diverse group that includes people who are skeptical about vaccine mandates.

RFK Jr. vows that the replacements he picks for ACIP “won’t directly work for the vaccine industry” and “will exercise independent judgment, refuse to serve as a rubber stamp, and foster a culture of critical inquiry — unafraid to ask hard questions.” This is just what a good doctor would want for MAHA vaccine policy.

John and Andy Schlafly are sons of Phyllis Schlafly (1924-2016) and lead the continuing Phyllis Schlafly Eagles organizations with writing and policy work.

These columns are also posted on PhyllisSchlafly.com, pseagles.com, and Townhall.com.

Trump Will Punish California for Trans Travesty

The Phyllis Schlafly Report
By John and Andy Schlafly

California just gave first-place awards to a transgender athlete in a girls’ state track championship. “A Biological Male competed in California Girls State Finals, WINNING BIG, despite the fact that they were warned by me not to do so,” Trump retorted on Tuesday on Truth Social.

“As Governor Gavin Newscum fully understands, large scale fines will be imposed!!!” Trump continued. Democrats are allowing this trans invasion of girls’ sports in multiple blue states, and it is typically not disclosed or reported unless someone speaks out.

Males are usually taller, faster, and stronger than females, and these differences are substantial in track and field events. The world record in the men’s long jump is nearly 5 feet longer than that of women’s, while the men’s high jump world record is more than a foot higher than women’s.

Hurdles for boys’ races are a half-foot higher than hurdles for girls in high school, which creates an additional incentive for boys to cross over to compete in the girls’ races. In 2023, a Massachusetts high school won the state title with points awarded to its transgender hurdler in a girls’ race.

Oregon allows any biological male to “access athletics and activities” by asserting that his gender identity is that of a girl. Only some of the competitors themselves know who the transgender athletes are, as this can be concealed from parents, spectators, and conservative media.

The second and third-place finishers in a recent Oregon high school girls’ track event protested awarding first place to a transgender, by declining to stand on the awards podium. “I just want everyone to know that this isn’t just about me or the other girl to step down. It’s about the girl in ninth place who should have had a place on that podium,” Alexa Anderson of Tigard High School told ABC’s local affiliate, KATU.

“It’s about the girl who didn’t qualify for state because they were beat by a biological male in districts,” she added. “It’s about the integrity and fairness of women’s sports.”

California Gov. Gavin Newsom, who is term-limited out in 2026 while eyeing a longshot bid for the Democrat nomination for president in 2028, admits that this is unfair. “It is an issue of fairness. It’s deeply unfair,” Newsom told Trump-supporting Charlie Kirk, adding that “I totally agree with you.”

Yet Newsom has failed to protect girls’ sports in California, and let a transgender athlete win girls’ championships. The California school sports association did allow for the podium to be shared by the top girl competitors under a hasty rule change, but only after Trump objected.

While Democrats oppose protecting girls’ sports from the transgender invasion, they are funding a $20 million project to study why young men are shifting from Democrat to Republican. The shift in this demographic has steadily progressed since beginning in 2016, continuing through 2020, and then helping propel Trump to his victory by a wide margin in 2024, at the same time that the transgender invasion has increased.

Democrat politicians are doing what Planned Parenthood wants, as they have for more than half a century. Every House Democrat recently voted against removal of the $792.2 million in federal taxpayer money that has been flowing to Planned Parenthood, and Democrat senators will do everything they can to try to reinsert that funding back into the “big, beautiful bill” that has reached the Senate.

An analysis by the Heritage Foundation of Planned Parenthood in 2023 found that the abortion giant is “trying to corner the market in so-called transgender services,” and that its transgender approach likely “makes up the bulk of the dramatic rise” in its revenue and multi-billion-dollar assets.

More than a decade ago, Planned Parenthood first mentioned providing “hormone treatments for transgender patients,” disclosing 26 centers in 10 states for these treatments in its 2014-2015 annual report. By its 2021-2022 report, Planned Parenthood had “41 affiliates provide gender-affirming hormone therapy.”

Surgical abortions in clinics have been declining in the United States, for a variety of reasons. But Planned Parenthood has grown its revenue in the transgender world to more than make up for the shortfall.

An all-out attempt to change one’s gender can rack up bills easily exceeding $100,000 per person, which some attempt to shift to taxpayers to pay for. Last year the American Principles Project estimated that overall revenues for transgender drugs and surgeries exceeded $4.4 billion in 2023.

Harmeet Dhillon, the tough and savvy new head of the Civil Rights Division of Trump’s Department of Justice, has threatened to sue California for allowing transgender athletes to win top prizes in girls’ sports competitions. At its championship track and field meet over the weekend, two first-place awards and one second-place award were given to a transgender athlete.

John and Andy Schlafly are sons of Phyllis Schlafly (1924-2016) and lead the continuing Phyllis Schlafly Eagles organizations with writing and policy work.

These columns are also posted on PhyllisSchlafly.com, pseagles.com, and Townhall.com.

Trump Whacks the Deep State

The Phyllis Schlafly Report
By John and Andy Schlafly

Last Friday the Trump Administration notified many employees of the National Security Council (NSC) that they were being dismissed, as its bloated staff of 395 is being chopped in half. This downsizing is long overdue, and the need for reductions at the NSC is recognized by even the liberal media.

But employees had already left work early for the weekend so some did not initially see these notices. This illustrates again the general lack of productivity in D.C., and how government employees there pay more attention to the media than to their jobs.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio who, since May 1, is also the National Security Advisor, has urged Trump to take control over the career government workers in D.C., and Trump is doing that. “What you’ve committed to do on Cuba, what you want to do on Cuba, is never going to come from career staff,” Rubio advised Trump.

“It’s going to have to come from the top down. You're going to have to tell them what to do,” Rubio added. Rubio holds the same position that Henry Kissinger held during the Nixon Administration, when Kissinger met multiple times every day with President Nixon.

A White House official observed that “the NSC is the ultimate Deep State. It’s Marco vs. the Deep State.” In support of this downsizing of the NSC, the White House official stated further that “we’re gutting the Deep State.”

An example of that was Ukrainian-born (then the USSR) Alexander Vindman and his twin brother Eugene, who were in key positions on the NSC during the first Trump Administration. Eugene complained about Trump’s perfect conversation with Zelensky and his brother Alexander then testified against Trump during the first impeachment hearings.

Now Eugene is a newly elected Democrat congressman in Virginia, while Alexander is reportedly considering a run as a Democrat for the U.S. Senate seat held by Republican Ashley Moody in Florida.

During the Revolutionary War in 1777, General Washington reportedly commanded, “Put none but Americans on guard tonight.” Historians clarify that Washington’s actual quote was this: “You will therefore send me none but Natives, and Men of some property, if you have them.”

Trump should have staff who are supportive and loyal to him working in his administration, as President Ronald Reagan did. California Supreme Court Justice William P. Clark turned down an opportunity to be appointed to the U.S. Supreme Court to help Reagan win the Cold War as his National Security Advisor.

But the Cold War has been over for more than a quarter-century, and the NSC has been a failure under Democrat Administrations by not keeping us out of war. Within weeks of Trump taking office, the NSC orchestrated a bombing attack that Vice President JD Vance properly opposed.

Vance explained in early March that only 3% of American trade flows through the Suez Canal, while 40% of European trade does. It was not in America’s interest to bomb anyone there, but the NSC refused to listen to Vance and instead approved an attack on the Houthis.

New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof wryly shouted in a column headline, “The $7 Billion We Wasted Bombing a Country We Couldn’t Find on a Map.” We lost not one but two F/A 18 Super Hornet fighter jets which cost $67 million each, one of which literally fell off its carrier, the USS Harry S. Truman.

Mike Waltz was initially appointed as National Security Advisor but quickly MAGA grassroots howled in protest over placing a neocon in this key role. On May 1, Trump astutely reassigned Waltz to be Ambassador to the United Nations, where he cannot entangle America in foreign wars.

The NSC is the nerve center of the resistance in D.C. to conservative leadership. President Reagan wisely downgraded the NSC to force it to report to his Chief of Staff, rather than allow it to continue as though it ranked above everyone else including a president.

Trump could shut down the NSC entirely and nothing would be missed. The Deep State no longer protects Americans against foreign enemies, but instead protects the bureaucracy against the will of the American People.

Trump’s bold action to fire most of the NSC staff comes at the same time that Elon Musk has announced his quiet exit from the political stage. Musk declared earlier this month that he feels he has given enough already toward elections, and instead plans to focus more on his businesses.

This creates a void, and politics abhors a vacuum. Musk was effective in framing the debate around the need to downsize the federal government, including firing thousands of employees, and he was instrumental in blocking overregulation by a new requirement that 30 million Americans register their private information with the Treasury Department’s FinCEN.

John and Andy Schlafly are sons of Phyllis Schlafly (1924-2016) and lead the continuing Phyllis Schlafly Eagles organizations with writing and policy work.

These columns are also posted on PhyllisSchlafly.com, pseagles.com, and Townhall.com.

Regulation of AI Is Not the Answer

The Phyllis Schlafly Report
By John and Andy Schlafly

Government regulators are champing at the bit to enact new rules to control artificial intelligence (AI) programs. The impact will be censorship of conservative speech, particularly by Democrat judges and blue states, and harm to the competitiveness of American AI just as overregulation in Europe has hindered AI development there.

Go onto Google's AI Mode and ask, "what is birthright citizenship"? Google AI responds by falsely saying it is a guaranteed right under the Fourteenth Amendment to automatically acquire U.S. citizenship if born here; the opposite of Trump’s executive order on this topic. Google is led by a foreigner who came to the U.S. on a student visa and never left.

Google's AI misleadingly declares, "Birthright citizenship is typically granted regardless of the citizenship or immigration status of the parents." The U.S. Supreme Court has never accepted this view for children of illegal aliens and those here temporarily, sometimes for the purpose of giving birth here to assert citizenship.

When asked, “Are student visas good for America?”, Google’s AI omits how these visas displace Americans from top schools. Instead, it emphasizes that “it’s crucial to address potential challenges and ensure that international students are treated fairly and have clear pathways to success in the U.S.,” as though that should be Americans’ concern.

Only robust freedom of speech can correct such bias, which requires preventing state regulators from infringing on unfettered speech by AI bots. Trump's legislative team has proposed a 10-year moratorium against state regulation of AI, a necessary measure to protect our First Amendment right to speech.

Any AI program that suggests non-”gender-affirming” therapy to offset attempts to change a minor’s gender will be quickly prohibited, and even criminalized, by Democrat regulation of AI. Already most Democrat-controlled states prohibit providing counseling to minors against transgender transitions, and this censorship will extend to AI programs unless Congress intervenes.

When ChatGPT is asked, “Is the abortion pill reversible?”, it gives a misleading pro-abortion answer in bold highlighting that “there is no scientifically proven method to reliably reverse the effects of the abortion pill.”

ChatGPT cites the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology as support for its biased statement without disclosing that the same group adamantly opposed the overturning of Roe v. Wade by the Supreme Court. Omitted by the left-leaning ChatGPT is that the American Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians and Gynecologists recommends treatment to reverse the abortion pill.

Ask Google’s AI Mode, “Are transgender treatments safe?” Its misleading response is, “Generally, transgender medical treatments, also known as gender-affirming care, are considered safe and effective when provided under the guidance of qualified healthcare professionals.”

In fact, European leaders discontinued children’s transgender programs, recognizing the harm caused by transgender medical treatments to children. The Cass Review in England was critical of these treatments and was cited by Supreme Court Justice Alito in the pending Skrmetti case, which is expected to uphold a ban on transgender treatments of children as enacted in half the States.

Liberal judges will declare First Amendment protections for the speech they prefer, while upholding censorship of conservative speech on topics such as transgender treatments and abortion. A letter joined by the anti-Trump New York Attorney General Letitia James, 20 other Democrat attorneys general, and 3 territorial attorneys general opposes a proposed federal moratorium of ten years on state AI regulation.

A smaller total of 16 Republican attorneys general, with some notable absences such as conservative Texas attorney general Ken Paxton, also signed onto this pro-regulation letter. This letter is vague about any legitimate regulatory goals, and relies on meaningless platitudes to “protect consumers” or safeguard “data privacy.”

The examples provided by the letter are predominantly of legislation enacted by liberal states including California and Colorado. This letter refers to the desire of these mostly Democratic jurisdictions to ban “deep-fakes designed to mislead voters and consumers” and to prohibit algorithms “used to set rent.”

Many Democrat politicians seek to preserve their power, weaponize government against Republicans, and censor conservative speech. Under the pretext of prohibiting speech that might “mislead voters,” the regulation sought by these predominantly Democrat attorneys general will censor conservatives as Big Tech does in its AI answers.

What liberals seek today concerning AI is what they sought in the 1990s for the internet: a "gatekeeper", as Hillary Clinton put it, to prevent unfiltered information from reaching the public. Liberals control most channels of communication, and an unregulated AI is necessary for conservative political candidates and causes to have a chance.

Conservatives fought successfully against regulation of the internet, such that Trump could repeatedly win presidential elections despite the bias in the liberal media. But if allowed to regulate AI, blue states will omit or marginalize conservative responses.

John and Andy Schlafly are sons of Phyllis Schlafly (1924-2016) and lead the continuing Phyllis Schlafly Eagles organizations with writing and policy work.

These columns are also posted on PhyllisSchlafly.com, pseagles.com, and Townhall.com.

SCOTUS Can Limit Birthright Citizenship

The Phyllis Schlafly Report
By John and Andy Schlafly

When the first oral argument before the Supreme Court on a Trump policy is held on Thursday, May 15, all eyes will be on the divided nine Justices. Trump has asked the high court to rein in the power of district court judges to issue nationwide or universal injunctions against the president’s policies.

Over 100 temporary or preliminary injunctions have been issued by district judges, most of whom were appointed by Democratic Presidents Biden, Obama, or Clinton. The underlying substantive dispute is over the claim to birthright citizenship by which foreigners who give birth here then assert citizenship based on the location of the childbirth.

Our Founders would be dismayed by the theory that merely being born on U.S. soil is enough to automatically qualify for citizenship. Christians know that Jesus and his 12 Apostles were born in the Roman Empire, yet none was a Roman citizen.

Only Paul among the early Christian disciples was a Roman citizen, which he inherited from his parents who were citizens. Others earned or acquired citizenship, but no one became a Roman citizen merely by being born in the empire.

Within hours of Trump becoming president, he issued an Executive Order entitled “Protecting the Meaning and Value of American Citizenship” which clarifies that American citizenship is not bestowed on people simply because they may have been born on American soil. “The Fourteenth Amendment has always excluded from birthright citizenship persons who were born in the United States but not ‘subject to the jurisdiction thereof,’” Trump stated.

Trump’s brilliant executive order clarifies that children born to a mother unlawfully present in the United States and to a father who was not an American citizen or lawful permanent resident are not entitled to American citizenship. Perhaps those children can become citizens one day as other foreigners can, but merely being born here does not entitle a child to citizenship here.

Likewise, when a child’s mother’s presence in the United States was lawful but merely temporary, and the father was not an American citizen or a lawful permanent resident, then childbirth does not bestow American citizenship. This executive order took effect for anyone born 30 days after it was entered on January 20, 2025.

There has been a cottage industry of bringing pregnant Chinese mothers to California for them to give birth in a hospital here, go back to China and then claim American citizenship when their children grow up. This racket needs to stop, and the Supreme Court could end it as Trump has commanded with one of his first executive orders.

Children born to foreign diplomats in the United States are not eligible to be American citizens. Citizenship is what defines a country and its future, and must be carefully limited to those who personally or through their families have a long commitment to our values and way of life.

American Indians were not automatically citizens for nearly the first 140 years of our country, because they had not assimilated into American communities but retained loyalties to their tribes. The same is true for many of the illegal aliens brought in by Biden, Obama, and Clinton.

Children born to American parents are American citizens if they are born in the United States, and can claim citizenship here if they were born while in another country. Children born to lawful permanent residents of the United States are American citizens because they are born subject to the jurisdiction of the United States, as the Supreme Court held in 1898.

Persons temporarily present (such as tourists, workers, students, and diplomats) and persons unlawfully present (who could be removed without notice) are expected to go back home. Their children, though born here, retain the citizenship of their parents’ country of origin.

The Supreme Court is divided on the issue of birthright citizenship, and it may try to duck the issue for now. Instead it may confine itself to the procedural question presented: “Whether the Supreme Court should stay the district courts’ nationwide preliminary injunctions on the Trump administration’s Jan. 20 executive order ending birthright citizenship except as to the individual plaintiffs and identified members of the organizational plaintiffs or states.”

Several justices, including Thomas and Gorsuch, have expressed strong opposition to nationwide injunctions that extend beyond the plaintiffs in a case. But it is unclear whether they can muster a majority of the Court to end this practice that is being used frequently by liberals now against many aspects of Trump’s agenda.

Limiting the scope of the injunctions against Trump’s birthright citizenship executive order to only the plaintiffs in the lawsuits would enable his order to go into effect against everyone else. That would mean the “Secretary of State, the Attorney General, the Secretary of Homeland Security, and the Commissioner of Social Security shall take all appropriate measures to ensure that the regulations and policies of their respective departments” implement this order.

John and Andy Schlafly are sons of Phyllis Schlafly (1924-2016) and lead the continuing Phyllis Schlafly Eagles organizations with writing and policy work.

These columns are also posted on PhyllisSchlafly.com, pseagles.com, and Townhall.com.

SCOTUS Victory for Trump as Lawfare Worsens

The Phyllis Schlafly Report
By John and Andy Schlafly

A 6-3 Supreme Court win for Trump’s ban on transgender soldiers came on Tuesday just as the deluge of liberal lawsuits was worsening. Improper court injunctions have been piling up like cars crashing in a fog on a crowded highway.

Under Trump’s order that the Court just allowed to go into effect, “service members who have a current diagnosis or history of, or exhibit symptoms consistent with, gender dysphoria will be processed for separation from military service.” This reverses the disastrous pro-transgender policy of Biden.

Lower courts had blocked Trump’s ban on transgenders in the military, just as liberal judges have been enjoining nearly every other initiative by Trump. “By allowing single, unelected federal judges to co-opt entire executive-branch policies at the drop of the hat, they create needless interbranch friction and perpetrate a truly lupine encroachment by the Judiciary on the President’s Article II authority,” Solicitor General John Sauer told the High Court.

By “lupine” the brilliant Sauer, who alone signs many Trump Administration briefs, refers to wolf-like behavior while disguised in sheep’s clothing. The victim of the overreaching judiciary is the American people trying to redirect our country toward prosperity.

John Sauer alerted the Supreme Court that there was “a dramatic upsurge in 2017, followed by an explosion in the last three months” of nationwide injunctions by solitary federal judges against Trump. These injunctions were nearly unheard of for the first 170 years of American history, Sauer points out.

In the short month of February alone, there were 15 nationwide injunctions entered by Democrat-appointed judges against the Trump Administration. This stymies the will of American voters who gave Trump his mandate last November to Make America Great Again.

On Monday, nearly two dozen Democrat state attorneys general filed three new lawsuits against Trump. Despite how these states span our country from coast-to-coast, they filed all of their lawsuits in federal district courts in New England where the district and appellate judges are nearly entirely Democrat-appointed, making this the most one-sided legal venue in our Nation.

The northeast venue is even more partisan than the San Francisco-based Ninth Circuit, where at least Trump was able to appoint ten of its 29 appellate judges during his first term. The lower district courts in all the Left Coast states are still reliably Democrat, but the Ninth Circuit could reverse them in up to a third of cases filed there against Trump.

One of the Democrats’ recent lawsuits is to block Trump’s executive orders protecting our environment against clanky offshore windmill boondoggles. While Democrat states refuse to allow offshore drilling for oil, as California has banned for decades, Democrats insist on constructing hundreds of wind turbines within sight of our beaches in the false promise they will produce efficient energy.

Maryland and other liberal states want to construct ugly wind turbines off their coasts, which blight the beautiful views and become a giant killing machine for birds. Trump’s executive order wisely suspends permits for these inefficient monstrosities pending review as to their high costs compared with their dubious benefits.

Twenty Democrat states filed suit in Rhode Island to block the Secretary of Health and Human Services, RFK Jr., from downsizing HHS and laying off federal employees. Rhode Island is hundreds of miles away from where the HHS employees work, and the Democrats’ selection of this court is blatant forum-shopping by the Left.

Federal workers are overwhelmingly Democrat and there is no constitutional or other right for them to be immune from layoffs common in the private sector. If laid-off federal workers cannot find another job, then it raises questions as to why taxpayers were being required to pay them to do nothing productive.

The Fourth Circuit, which presides over states including Maryland and Virginia, has issued four recent rulings in favor of Trump, each of which blocked an anti-Trump order by a separate Democrat-appointed district judge. Two of the district court judges were appointed by Obama and two by Biden.

These hopeful appellate decisions restored Trump’s power to fire probationary workers at 20 federal agencies, terminate federally funded teacher and contractor DEI programs, and reinstate much-needed oversight of USAID programs by Elon Musk and DOGE.

An Obama-appointed judge was assigned to a new lawsuit brought by Harvard University in Boston against Trump to unfreeze $2 billion in federal funds that were flowing to that institution. Harvard requested and received the appointment of this judge to its case, by citing her role in what Harvard asserted was a similar matter.

The third new case brought by many Democrat states on Monday was to block Trump’s executive order improving election integrity. Trump properly ordered that federal funding be withheld from states that count mail-in ballots not received until after Election Day, which delays counting and reporting of election results.

John and Andy Schlafly are sons of Phyllis Schlafly (1924-2016) and lead the continuing Phyllis Schlafly Eagles organizations with writing and policy work.

These columns are also posted on PhyllisSchlafly.com, pseagles.com, and Townhall.com.